1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automotive meter and, more specifically, an automotive meter, such as a speed meter, mounted on the instrument panel of an automobile.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Automotive meters including a speed meter for indicating the running speed of the automobile are mounted on the instrument panel of the automobile. FIG. 4 shows such a conventional automotive meter comprising a meter case 1 having an upper wall projecting to the front, a graduated dial plate 2 fastened to the inner surface of the meter case, meter unit 3 fixedly disposed behind the dial plate 2, indicating needles 4 which are driven respectively by the meter units 3 according to measured values to indicate the measured values on the dial plate 2, an ultraviolet lamp (hereinafter referred to as "UV lamp") 5 disposed in front of the dial plate 2 at a position corresponding to the upper part of the dial plate 2 to irradiate the graduated surface of the dial plate 2 by ultraviolet rays (hereinafter referred to as "UV rays"), and a meter pane 6 attached to the front end of the meter case 1 at an inclination. As shown in FIGS. 5 and 6, the dial plate 2 is formed by coating the front surface of a base plate 7 by printing a ground layer 8 with an UV ink prepared by mixing a substantially transparent fluorescent pigment and a colored ink, printing a halftone layer 9 over the ground layer 8, and printing dial patterns 10 including graduations and characters on the halftone layer 9 with an ink of a bright color such as a white ink.
In the daytime, the ground layer 8 makes the front surface of the dial plate 2 look dark, for example, gray, and the dial patterns 10 including graduations and characters look white in the daylight. In the nighttime, the ground layer 8 of the UV ink becomes luminous in, for example, green, when irradiated by UV rays emitted by the UV lamp 5 and the dial pattern 10 look white. The dot density of the halftone layer 9 in the central regions of the dial patterns 10 higher than that in regions surrounding the dial patterns 10 as shown in FIG. 5, makes the dial plate 2 look convex toward the front and gives the dial plate 2 the appearance of tridimensionality.
The effect of such a distribution of dot density on giving the dial plate 2 the appearance of tridimensionality, however, is insufficient and is unable to give effectively the dial patterns 10 of the dial plate 2 the appearance of tridimensionality.